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Originally Posted by DoTheMath
I wasn't disagreeing with your whole post, just the contention that the rules say you must show first when you have a good hand.
You are knocking down a strawman. I never said that the rulebook prohibited douchebags from holding up the game by insisting on the order of showdown when they have a probable winner. The right to be a jerk in that situation is absolutely protected.
What I said is that the rulebook also says that what you SHOULD do is not be a suppository and instead show your hand. You aren't required to. You can be a doofus if you wish and not do it. That's always your choice. But the RIGHT choice is to show.
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The notion that calling is paying for the right to see the other's hand goes back to the original showdown rules for poker, under which if you called somebody on the river, they had to show their hand (so did you).
While you are correct that originally all hands were tabled at showdown, you are incorrect that any set of rules ever said that players who call bets at showdown are paying for information. They are paying for the right to a share of the pot. Players who do not call bets at showdown have no such right.
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While even then there may have been an argument that strictly speaking you were paying to have a chance to win the pot, it was an avoidable fact that if you called, you got to see the other hand.
The second clause of that sentence is true. But it wasn't true because you "paid" for it.
A simple example will show this. Everyone else at the table ALSO gets to see all hands at showdown under that rule. (Indeed, under current rules, anyone at the table can STILL request to see all hands, although the right can be taken away if abused.) In other words, people who under your theory DID NOT "pay" for the information still get it. That makes no sense.
Whereas under my theory these people get the information simply because there is a rule that says everyone has to show their hands at showdown.
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I'm not sure the rulebook makes a claim one way or another as to the purpose of calling. The rule book describes the multiple effects of calling.
Now I'll disagree with your implication that failing to show first with a good hand always make you a douche. As SGT RJ said herself, sometimes it can be +ev. Against an opponent who is playing information games, waiting your turn to show is not neccessarily being a douche.
I think I demonstrated above that the rulebook is inconsistent with the claim that people who are calling are paying for the information. If that were actually correct, there would be no IWTSTH rule and no encouragement to show a probable winner first.
As for douchebaggery, it is always possible that being a douche is +EV. For instance, refusing to chop with the guy on your right while chopping with the guy on your left is probably +EV. Nonetheless, you shouldn't do it, because the customs of live poker are not about wringing every cent of EV out of every situation in this game; it is also a collaborative social activity and consistently chopping or not chopping is an unwritten rule of that activity.
In this case, however, I am actually quite convinced that if you are actually a winning player (most players are not, bear in mind), it is NOT +EV to do this. I am not sure that it necessarily drives off fish, but I know it slows down the game and more hands / hour = +EV for a winning player. Meanwhile, winning players do not need to see losing hands, because they are excellent handreaders who can put players on ranges without seeing them.